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If B1 stepping performance for Bulldozer doesn't look too good, can we really expect a magical jump within one more stepping? was hoping Bulldozer would be competitive :(....Intel's having it faar too easy in the enthusiast segment...Reply

Most probably there is a little hw bug that is preventing it to reach the intended clockrates. (BD is desingned to work at high clockrates, at least some parts of it.) If it gets fixed it's ready to go...

So, it's not about redesigning the whole thing in a new stepping.Reply

It may not be about clock rates, and more about design errors that cause logic problems in how instructions are executed. These errors can be discovered and fixed, which of course means a new stepping. Now, there is one other issue here, and that is about the speed of the chips. As long as AMD can come up with a chip that performs as well as an Intel chip at the same price point, AMD will sell quite a few processors.

Let's face it, most people don't look to buy the very fastest CPU or GPU, but look to get the best bang for their buck. Even something that performs on par with the Phenom 2 965 is easily something that will sell fairly well if the price is right, and Bulldozer SHOULD be quite a bit faster, clock for clock. The problem right now is that AMD is having problems competing with the Intel i5, so the CPU performance of Bulldozer is critical.Reply

I think such kind of errors show up during initial product evaluations (rev.A0, A1), even early simulations. There are Enginering Sampes out (B0, perhaps B1) since last year that works well - at moderate clockrates.Reply

Yeah, I'd like to know what Fatal1ty's background in computer hardware is, that he should think the inclusion of IDE and floppy support is still important. USB flash drives have killed off the floppy (unless you're installing XP still?), and IDE hasn't been useful for anything beyond DVDRs for years.Reply

Some people still have old data on floppy they want access to, and having a floppy drive in ONE computer, just for that reason alone may be worth having the connector. I agree that the floppy drive is dead technology, but some people out there keep trying to raise the dead.Reply

I don't even see why he'd want an IDE port. SATA DVD burners are what? $30 or less on Newegg? Who exactly is going to buy an high end premium motherboard and not have the $30 to get a DVD burner that was manufactured in the last five years?Reply

I, like you, thought this for a long time. But it has since occurred to me that some people like to keep ALL of their SATA ports open for HDD's or SSD's only. I could compromise in this area all thought I'd rather not. Now, sure, they could buy an external CD/DVD burner, but I'm sure performance times would be significantly slowed down.Reply

If they have the board space it's more or less free if they put any other legacy IO on. Floppy, PS2, RS232, LPT, and game port IO are all controlled by a single SuperIO chip(named that because 20ish years ago it took an ISA card with a bunch of seperate controllers for each of the ports). PS2 lingers on among some hardcore users, mostly because USB keyboards are limited to reporting 7 simultaneous keypresses (although why noone is willing to write an enhanced USB keyboard protocol+drivers to do away with the limit is beyond me).Reply

Actually, some USB boards can do more then 6KRO these days. Microsoft, Ducky, Noppoo, and Leopold all have models that do more then 10KRO on USB, so unless you've got more then ten fingers, you're good. There's a list of them over at Geekhack.org. The GH community has also got a number of XT/PS2-to-USB converters that pass full NKRO to USB using a Teensy and about $30 worth or parts.Reply

Aren't you? You should be. I have been almost praying that AMD can get a gold mine from the Bulldozer CPU lineup. They have been doing only ok with their current lineup of cpu's and disregarding cpu reviews AMD's cpu's are really pretty good. But they have a lot riding on this new cpu and if it fails it may put AMD in a spot they can't recover from and this would be a very bad thing indeed. It makes me all the more worried that AMD and ATI are tied together and the worst case I can think of is both of these Co's go out of business, get bought up by a real stupid company and all we have left to deal with is Intel and Nvidia... I can remember the days when a Intel 286 cpu cost around as much as a computer costs today and this is just for the cpu alone. And if ATI can't separate and go from where they were before AMD took them in I can see the costs of Intel and Nvidia products getting very expensive and I really do NOT want to see this happen. I wish more people were more aware of just how bad it will be and support AMD... Everyone has AMD to thank for the low cost of both Co's cpus. I continue to support them and I wish more people would but most only look at the short term and people like me are waiting for the big I told you so when a Intel cpu jumps up to around 1000.00 or so average cost. And really for most programs it's hard to really tell which cpu is in a computer without looking inside. They are both more than fast enough to run games and just about anything else but reading how a few FPS one way or the other decides the cpu to buy is kind of stupid. Same with video cards where the performance is so high on most games that either one will play the games smoothly. Remember, when you go to a movie you see it at 24fps and anything over 30 gets enough speed to work great.

Anyway, I am really really hoping AMD gets their new cpu to fly because I hate to see people cutting their own throats by letting intel win this war. It's like watching a bunch of idiots going on strike after strike with a Auto maker in England. They kept it up until they killed the company and all were out of work. People are like this unfortunately. They rarely take the time to see cause and effect happen even to the point of shooting themselves in the foot. Reply

i understand your concern, but can you really blame people for their buying decisions? Given a choice between 2 products at the same price, you will automatically go with the one that gets more performance, even if it's just a couple of fps.Unfortunately for AMD, Intel has performance and price at very competitive levels with SB.If AMD goes down, it's very likely someone else would step in to take their place, we hopefully won't see any monopolies.Reply

Then why were people paying more (sometimes alot more) for Intel cpu's back during the P4/Athlon days? I disagree with your comment mainly because the masses don't know what to buy.. You take a look at their systems and usually just shake your head.Reply

It is possible that we have AMD to blame for the lack of competition and stagnation in x86 land. If AMD did not release their 64 bit extensions, then Intel would likely have choked itself off with Itanium, while ARM cpus mopped up the consumer markets. AMD is grossly incompetent. They still have not integrated a SSD controller into their cpu. They have no LPDDR controller either. These are both major failures that will make it very difficult for them to enter the tablet/MID market if they do not rectify the situation immediately. AMD needs to work with both Adobe and Microsoft to hammer out a set of special instructions not just for their SIMDs but for their x86 cores. They have failed massively on that front as well. That could have been a major major coup de grace...Reply

Not enough PCIe lanes on the southbridge to fill out a fully loaded full ATX board. Unless Intel bumps the number of SB lanes from 8 to 12 (vs 5 PCI ports) on their legacy PCIless 7x chipsets I expect most full ATX boards will either have a bridge chip (1xPCIe - PCI or 1xPCIe to 4x PCIe) or will have several empty slots in the expansion section.Reply

I think these products sell in spite of him. Yeah, I can remember back when he was actually competing in games. Fatal1ty branded products are usually decent, and current younger gamers who don't even know who Wendell is will purchase it because "Fatal1ty" just looks cool. The word has street cred with the online instant messaging gaming crowd because of the "1" in it, LOL.Reply

I have been waiting to upgrade my video encoding rig for a while now. Originally I wanted to get an i7-2600K but decided to wait for Bulldozer. After this, would you say that it's safe to get a i7-2600K now?Reply

Didn't AMD add support for USB 3.0 in the new 990 chipsets? Thats a pretty big new feature. Also there are supposed to be some new power features when used with a BD cpu. So really the chipsets are not a simple rebadge.Reply

Noup. No native USB 3 support from sb950. The next version should be out in the next month or so, that will bring that feature by Fusion Controller Hub.There are some electrical differencies and new HyperTransport 3.1 in 990 thats are new.So minor tweaks in here and there. What is good is that most features can be supported via 890 by bios update. Not all though.Reply

Hmm, I've thought USB 3.0 was native. Anyway, they say there is a "full speed" PCI-Expess 2.0 x4 link now between the NB and SB (it was the same on paper, though). SATA got TRIM support for SSD's. They will support (enable) IOMMU also with 990X and 970, not just the top-end part (990FX), like in case of the 8xx.

There is also something about the CPU core temperatures reading and faster VID changes, but perhaps these are not related to the chipset.Reply

lol they're naming a mobo after some guy who requested IDE & Floppy connectors be included on a mobo being released in 2011???? this guy is clueless about hardware, and if this is meant to be an enthusiast mobo he has just killed it!Reply